Sunday morning was harsh and cold, and when she came out of South Kensington Station a fog was rising in the squares, and a great whiff of yellow cloud drifted down upon the house-tops. In the Fulham road the tops of the houses disappeared, and the light of the third gas-lamp was not visible. "This is the sort of weather that takes them off. I can hardly breathe it myself." Everything was shadow-like; those walking in front of her passed out of sight like shades, and once she thought she must have missed her way, though that was impossible, for her way was quite straight.... Suddenly the silhouette of the winged building rose up enormous on the sulphur sky. The low-lying gardens were full of poisonous vapour, and the thin trees seemed like the ghosts of consumptive men. The porter coughed like a dead man as she passed, and he said, "Bad weather for the poor sick ones upstairs." She was prepared for a change for the worse, but she did not expect to see a living man looking so like a dead one. He could no longer lie back in bed and breathe, so he was propped up with pillows, and he looked even as shadow-like as those she had half seen in the fog-cloud. There was fog even in the ward, and the lights burned red in the silence. There were five beds--low iron bedsteads--and each was covered with a dark red rug. In the furthest corner lay the wreck of a great working man. He wore his hob-nails and his corduroys, and his once brawny arm lay along his thigh, shrivelled and powerless as a child's. In the middle of the room a little clerk, wasted and weary, without any strength at all, lay striving for breath. The navvy was alone; the little clerk had his family round him, his wife and his two children, a baby in arms and a little boy three years old. The doctor had just come in, and the woman was prattling gaily about her confinement. She said-- "I was up the following week. Wonderful what we women can go through. No one would think it.... brought the childer to see their father; they is a little idol to him, poor fellow." "How are you to-day, dearie?" Esther said, as she took a seat by her husband's bed. "Better than I was on Friday, but this weather'll do for me if it continues much longer.... You see them two beds? They died yesterday, and I've 'eard that three or four that left the hospital are gone, too." The doctor came to William's bed. "Well, are you still determined to go home?" he said. "Yes; I'd like to die at home. You can't do nothing for me.... I'd like to die at home; I want to see my boy." "You can see Jack here," said Esther. "I'd sooner see him at 'ome.... I suppose you don't want the trouble of a death in the 'ouse." "Oh, William, how can you speak so!" The patient coughed painfully, and leaned against the pillows, unable to speak. Esther remained with William till the time permitted to visitors had expired. He could not speak to her but she knew he liked her to be with him.